


Witches

by StaccatoSemibreve



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 09:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18568954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StaccatoSemibreve/pseuds/StaccatoSemibreve
Summary: A piece I wrote as a call to arms when I was feeling especially angry at all the injustices of the world. Contains up front acknowledgement of death and injustices, and references to hate crimes and suicide.





	Witches

**Author's Note:**

> Contains up front acknowledgement of death and injustices, and references to hate crimes and suicide

You put on your ceremonial clothes that demonstrate your ranking, your values, and to some extent, your very identity. You pick up your enchanted mirror, and summon your familiar. You leave the flat and get on the subway, ready to go grocery shopping.

There is much in everyone's life that could be analoguous to stereotypical magical devices in the stories we learnt in our youth, but that doesn't make the life analoguous to the magical people in those tales. The wise, powerful wizards, whose errors were most almighty, the mysterious warlocks, whose deep connection to the powers of the world could never be understood, and the sneaky, conniving witches, who definitely weren't just women who were a bit too questioning or a bit too uppity or not heteronormative enough or not pretty enough and so "we" (that is, the collective everyone that explicitly excludes she) decided we should use her for central heating.

Or, to avoid the euphemisms, to avoid escaping the societal guilt we should still feel today, for we still commit the same crimes, we committed murder. We murdered an innocent woman. Then we did it an incomprehensible number of times hence. (Sometimes we messed up and accidentally drove them off to die in the woods instead, aren't we silly?)

We are fallible. We can be tricked by fear, and we should acknowledge our mistakes and fears to avoid such horrific travesties. But that is not all we must do. We must be aware that the fears come from somewhere - they didn't just magically appear one day and drive us to do terrible things. They were made.

The question of whether the fears were created intentionally can be asked, but is missing the point: they were created. Their creation was the spark that drove the blaze that caused the loss of so many people, so many times. Imagine dying. You're gone. There is no more you, no more self. No more autonomy, choice, thoughts, desires, enjoyment, love, fear, excitement, no more anything. A life with so much potential, gone. Now imagine that happening twice. Wait, sorry, ten times. Wait, 20. 100. 1,000. 10,000.

Imagine that you were each victim in turn, imagine their pain, mourn their absence. Imagine this for each massacre and genocide and injustice you are aware of. Imagine the pain of those lynched, or burned, or imprisoned until their life has wasted away, or driven to suicide. Understand why we cannot let this keep happening. Consider why it is still happening.

We are driven to war by those who stand to gain, or simply fear that we might turn against them should we not be distracted. We are taught to hate those who look different, simply because any wealth or power we have is predicated on their subjugation. Simply because the best chance we have of gaining power is predicated on their subjugation. This is not a story, this is a widely recognised historical fact. We fear those we, the collective we, do not understand, because we refuse to understand. We kill and we torment and we have to face up to this. We are all guilty. It is the default state of existence in the modern world.

And we must put an end to this. This is one way to do it. This is told to you by a white lower-to-middle-class asexual neurodivergent able-bodied trans woman - the privileges and marginalisations inherent in my identity must be acknowledged. The privileges and marginalisations inherent in your identity must also be acknowledged.

**Step 1** : to acknowledge our own parts in the story that is life and death.  
This is not an easy thing, but it is perhaps the easiest of the task at hand. And it cannot be skipped. And the task is necessary. We don't have long left before, at long last, it is too late.

**Step 2** : to acknowledge each other's parts in the story that is life and death.  
This is not just your pals, your mates, the people in your social circles. This is also the marginalised. And those with power: the politicians, the ceos, those who consider a million quid to be a paltry sum. This is also those who could end world hunger in a heartbeat and, with each heartbeat, choose to let the suffering continue, in one of the most horrific acts imaginable - it is their fault. And we let them. Acknowledge this.

**Step 3** : knowing at least some of the way the world works, and knowing that your allies will pick up any slack: do not.  
Do not kill the disenfranchised. Do not let the empowered commit such atrocities. Make "do not!" your battle cry, not an inaction, but an action of cessation. Do not. Take power from those who abuse it, give a voice to those who lack one, and be vigilant. Someone has to be, and there's no reason it shouldn't be you.

**Step 4** : fix the world.  
Step 3 wasn't the final step, it was simply an error correction. The world was on the wrong path - set it right. Create a world that is at peace, that lets people live, that supports people. A world of kindness, not of war. And do not let simple disagreements stand in the way of such a thing, there is plenty of room in our, the collective our, world.

**Step 5** : keep making the world a better place.  
Remember, this is a process, but you've already done so much good in the world. And you are not alone. You are not the leader of the new path, simply one among many who acted upon the choice to make things better. You are one among many great people. You are great.

There will be no more witch hunts, for their magic is that of hope and despair, and we have seized that hope and made it true. We, the collective we, are the witches now. <3

In memory of all who we, the collective we, have killed.

(That is, all the black people, women, trans people, non-binary people, gay people, bi people, ace people, disabled people, jewish people, muslim people, romani people, neurodivergent people, poor people, entire cultures and countries and communities worth of people, and all other people systematically made vulnerable and driven to their end.)


End file.
